Recounting
by AnonymousWriter719
Summary: Draco Malfoy is filled with nothing but regrets and memories of what he was never able to have as he dies. I suck at summaries. It isn't as bad as it sounds. Rated T for language and references to torture.


**Disclaimer: I am not J. K. Rowling. I own nothing.**

You sag limply against the ropes binding you to the cold metal chair. You can't even bring yourself to sit upright anymore; breathing is taking all of your remaining energy. For some reason, you find yourself thinking of the books **she** used to read. The well-worn paperbacks, where the hero had to fight to save the world, and was tortured for days on end by the villains. When their bodies had taken too much abuse, and they knew they were close to dying, they stopped feeling anymore; blissfully given a respite from the pain before they finally, mercifully, died. You wish you could be given a similar relief, but of course, you've never had that kind of luck. You're painfully aware of every bruise, gash, cut, sore and burn on your body. Your mutilated face throbs and blood trickles idly into your eyes, filming the world in red. The broken bones protrude oddly from your skin, like a broken toy with the wires sticking out. The pain is doubled in the places where the bindings cut into your flesh, soaking the ropes in dull red blood.

You remember how **she** used to cry every time a poor, tortured person would finally let go and die. You know that **she** wasn't thinking of the character, but of one of **her** friends who died in the war or who underwent similar treatment. **She** saw so much in the war; so much death, pain and destruction. You all did. Every time you saw **her** looking so vulnerable and afraid, you yearned to hold **her** and reassure **her**. But, of course, you didn't. You couldn't.

Now that you have started thinking of **her**, you can't stop. Memories creep into your mind. You try to fight against them; you don't want to have to relive the constant longing. But you're too weak to fight against them. Besides, at least you will be able to die with **her** face in your mind.

_Yet another detention for fighting with the Gryffindors. He is paired up with that Mudblood to clean the mess from Longbottom's exploded cauldron without magic. She is on her hands and knees, rubber gloves up to her elbows, and scrubbing furiously at the stains on the floor. He sits on one of the desks, tie undone, shirt partly unbuttoned, sleeves rolled up, and not bothering to clean._

"_You enjoy this, don't you, Granger? Finally get to do what suits you best, eh?" he drawls with a smirk as Granger rises to the bait. She springs up, covered in soapy water, clothes sticking to her frame._

"_Shut up, Malfoy. Get your poncy arse over here and help, or I'll have to waste my whole night here with you!"_

"_But why would I want to forfeit the pleasure of your company? You're _ever _so pleasant," he remarks dryly._

"_I'm warning you, Malfoy. Shut up and get to work," she demands through clenched teeth. He rolls his eyes, but complies, eying the yellow rubber gloves with distaste before putting them on. He slides off the desk and smirks as he kneels beside Granger._

"_You know, Granger, I think this is all just an excuse to be able to be close to me."_

_She glares at him. "You wish, Ferret. It's a shame I'm not into Death Eater scum." She does not look at him as she says this, instead choosing to scrub the floor with more fervour._

"_No, of course not. You're into dirt poor, red-haired, blood traitors, aren't you? How nice, the mudblood with the blood traitor. It makes me wonder who is filthier. You or the Weasel."_

_Granger whips around and grabs Malfoy by the tie, strangling him. "You have no right to even speak about him, Ferret. So I'll say this nicely one more time: Fuck. Off." She releases him and returns to the task at hand._

_Malfoy chokes, bringing a hand up to his throat. "Don't touch me again, Mudblood. I don't want to get one of your horrid muggle diseases."_

_They ignore each other for the rest of the night._

_It begins slowly. _

_A long stare in the wrong direction. Noticing things he has never noticed before. Dreaming and thinking of disgusting things; things that are wicked and against everything he has ever known. But he cannot stop it._

_He tosses and turns in bed, looking at the curtains around him, and trying to wipe the images of her face off of his mind. He thinks of what his father would say, if he knew what his perfect heir was struggling with. "A Mudblood. My heir is pining after a Mudblood." He can feel the steady beating of the belt, the mad look in Father's eyes, the red welts on his back. Moaning, he pulls the sheets over his head._

_How can his mind betray him this way? Why is he risking everything, his friends, his family, for something so repulsive? He is the scion of the Malfoy name, and the Prince of Slytherin. How can he be entertaining these thoughts about a Mudblood Gryffindor? He is supposed to hate her, be reviled by her, insult her and hurt her._

_Turning over once more, he realizes trying is futile. He won't get any sleep with her image behind his eyelids. He feels abhorrence towards her. The very thought of sullying his blood with someone so filthy should disgust him beyond reason, but it does not. The only sentiment he can muster is self-loathing. _

_He is throwing away his life for a girl. The Mudblood Gryffindor girl. Best friend of the Savior, Queen of the Light. His father will hate him, his mother will die of grief, the Dark Lord will kill him, his pride will be shot, his name will be tarnished and his future will be ruined._

_He knows he will not sleep again for a very long time._

_He sits in the library, watching her intently as she walks through the rows of shelves, looking for something. He suddenly seems to come to a decision. Standing up quickly, he walks towards her, trying not to lose his nerve. "What are you looking for?" he murmurs, leaning against a shelf._

"_Sod off, Malfoy. I'm not in the mood," she snaps, instantly furious._

_He now sees that her eyes are red-rimmed and swollen, that her hands are shaking. "Were you crying?" He asks, astonished to see her so vulnerable._

"_You prat!" She screeches, shoving him with both hands against the shelf. "I _hate _you. This is all your fault."_

_He sneers at her. "I'd watch my mouth if I were you, Granger. The Dark Lord will not be so lenient to petty Mudbloods." He cannot bring himself to care anymore. Instead, he just gives up with another half-hearted sneer._

"_Shut up, Malfoy! You are nothing but Death Eater scum. You will lose this war, and you will see how much power your Dark Lord will give you then!" She storms away, bushy hair forming a halo around her head._

_He sits back down at his table, resting his forehead on the wood, feeling numb. What was he expecting? For her to open up to him? For her to befriend him? For her to pretend as though the past seven years never happened? No. He isn't stupid._

_Yet, for some reason, it does come as a shock, how much she hates him. It's not as if he ever gave her a reason or motivation to not hate him. He has thrown away his life for nothing._

_He spends his time thinking of her, looking at her, dreaming of her. He tries to stop, he does. Because really, no matter how much he dreams of her and thinks of her and looks at her, she will never reciprocate. However, he is, as always, too weak to stop himself from loving her._

_Looking at the floor as he paces through the halls on the way to potions, he catches sight of her, bushy brown hair flying behind her in her rush to get to class. She passes by him and he nods at her. "Hello," he murmurs, lips tugging into a smile._

_She freezes, turns to face him, wand aloft._

"_Oi, Malfoy! Leave her alone." The rest of the Golden Trio soon flank her sides, wands at the ready, half-spoken curses ready to be said aloud._

"_Potter. Weasley. I can assure you that I did not say anything to her." He sneers at them, ice in his gaze for interrupting his once chance to talk to __**her**__. His fingers twitch, and he longs for his wand, but he does not pull it out to meet their challenge. He won't hurt her; he can't hurt her._

"_Sure, Ferret, as though we'd believe that. All of you snakes are always up to something. Rotten Slytherins."_

_A retort rushes to his mouth, and he glares at the ginger, but he stops himself. "You're right, Weasel. Slytherins are the world's best tacticians. We're constantly thinking, strategizing, plotting. We cannot be outsmarted, which is why intelligent persons try their best to stay in our good graces. I suggest you do the same." He replies as formally as possible, hiding his thinly veiled threat and warning under straight-backed composure._

_Weasley gapes at him dumbly. Barely stopping from smirking, he smiles tersely at her with a softly muttered "Goodbye," before turning and leaving. _

_Their words drift towards him clearly, and he clenches his fists as he hears them._

"_Are you alright 'Mione?" asks Potter._

"_Yeah, did the ferret say something?"_

_She only remains silent, and he can feel the pressure of her gaze on his retreating back._

"_He's up to something," she says. "I don't like it."_

_After almost two months of this, they are in the library again. He is sitting at the same table as before, and she's sitting at her usual table in the corner. He catches her eye and smiles slightly in greeting before returning to his DADA essay. He has been working for only ten minutes, when suddenly, he hears footsteps, and __**she **__is sitting in the chair next to him. He does his best not to get his hopes up and looks up slowly. "Hello," he says cautiously._

"_Stop it!" she demands, her fingers turning white from clutching the edge of the table._

"_I'm sorry?"_

"_See! That's exactly what I'm talking about! What the bloody hell are you playing at?"_

_All he can do is stare at her dumbly, at a loss of words._

"_Look, it's really difficult to hate you when you are acting like a person. And, you see, I _have_ to hate you because we are on opposite sides of this war. So just… stop. Stop acting like a person, because it's too late. You can't be a monster for seventeen years and then decide to change, alright! It's just not the way things work!" She has tears in her eyes now, and he dimly wonders why she is crying when he is the one being destroyed. He is the one whose last chance at salvation has been abruptly withdrawn; whose last chance at happiness has been denied._

"_I- I love you," he breathes. He realizes then that if he's going to be damned, he may as well go all the way._

_She gasps and begins to sob in earnest. "No you don't! You can't love me, I won't let you! Besides, I don't love you; I will __**never **__love you! And you don't even know me. You can't love someone you don't know. We've never even spoken before. Just because you see someone every day and greet them does not mean you know them, and you can't love someone you don't know!" She repeats it like a mantra "You can't, you can't, you can't."_

_He looks at her and for the first time in a long while, he is angry at her. "What do you want me to say? I don't want to make things harder for you, so if you really want me to, I'll stop talking to you. But I can't pretend to hate you again. I'm sorry. If you refuse to believe people can change, there's nothing I can do. But I won't lie about this."_

_She has stopped crying now; she is just gaping at him instead. "I- I-…"_

_He collects his things and stands up. But before he turns around, he brushes his lips against her cheek. "I just wanted to know what it would be like," he mutters. And he leaves without a backwards glance._

You don't even notice the tears streaming down your cheeks. You're too busy thinking about how you kept your vow, and loved her from a distance. It was paradise compared to the torture of not being able to see her after you graduated, not being able to know if she was alive or not. So you switched sides, hoping that you would be able to protect her more easily. And you did. You made sure to keep an eye on her, while still honouring her original wishes, and you made sure to volunteer for most of her more dangerous missions.

And then, after Potter finished off Voldemort, everyone thought that the dark days were finally over. You were relieved that she was safe, but at the same time you dreaded not being able to see her again. The rest of the wizarding world, however, was rejoicing. A new Ministry of Magic was formed, the population grew and thrived, huge advancements in spells and potions were made thanks to her research, and the few Death Eaters who had survived were sent to Azkaban. It was a Golden Age. Which was why no one was prepared when the purebloods suddenly rebelled and started a new era, where once again, muggles, mudbloods and blood-traitors were hunted and murdered.

For her sake, you joined the purebloods as a spy, hoping to sabotage their plans from the inside. After a few weeks, plans were leaked to you that an attack was being planned on the day of her wedding. She was marrying the Weasel. And despite how much you would have liked letting the Weasel die, you would not risk her life. So you tried contacting her, to tell her about the attack.

_He approaches the modest flat, shoulders set. Rapping on the door, he waits, stomach forming knots._

_She's laughing as she opens the door, looking behind her and grinning at some comment the Weasel must have said. When she looks at him the sparkle is still in her eyes, and his breath catches in his chest; she is more beautiful than he had remembered. So caught up is he in admiring her, that he barely notices how her smile has melted and she is glaring at him._

"_How do you know where I live, Malfoy?"_

"_I have to tell you something."_

"_Tell me what, Malfoy?" She taps her foot in a jarring rhythm against the porch, hands on her hips, standing before the slightly ajar door._

"_The purebloods are planning an attack on the day of your wedding. They saw the announcement in the Profit, and have gathered a group of former Death Eaters and Fenrir's old pack to attack and capture Potter. There's quite a prize over his, your, or your Weasley's head."_

_The tapping stops and the only sound are the voices coming from within._

"_A- an attack?" Her eyebrows meet her messy hairline, and she grabs onto her wand, looking to either side rapidly._

"_Yes. On the day of your wedding." He steps towards her. "You should cancel, and move the ceremony. Their forces are too many to fight without gathering our own army. We can't risk it. You'll be like sitting ducks at the wedding, caught in an enclosed space with no escape. It'll be massacre."_

_Her expression changes. She sneers at him and lifts her wand out of her pocket, slamming it into his chest. "You disgust me, Ferret. You think I'll really fall for this shite? You must think I'm a bloody imbecile to fall for this. I love Ron, and I'm going to marry him whenever I want! No scheme of yours can stop me. Do you really think that you can show up with an excuse to move my wedding, which I have been planning for months, and somehow make me fall in love with you? I already told you, I will never love you. You disgust me. I will marry Ron, and you can take your half-arsed schemes somewhere else, I don't want to hear them, and they won't work on me."_

_She uses a Stinging Hex on him, and he flinches backwards. "Granger, you don't understand. This has nothing to do with my feelings; I'm not making this up. I know you're marrying Weasley, I've accepted it, and gotten over it. I'm not petty enough to come up with something like this to try to take you from your happiness. I've grown up. I wish you could see that. I thought you did, during the war, but clearly I was wrong. I should have known better. You've already shown you're not one for second chances."_

_He looks at the doorframe instead of meeting her eyes. He can't bear to see the anger, or worse, the utter indifference at his presence. His jaw clenches._

"_I warned you, Granger, and if your friends die, if your Weasley dies, if you die, I cannot be held responsible. I tried to convince you. I told you what was going to happen. I tried to help. But you were too thick to listen. Their blood will be on your hands."_

_He turns to leave, he takes the first step back down the path to the road, but he cannot. He remains immobile for multiple seconds, and he can almost feel his teeth whittle down to nothing as he grinds them. Deep breathing does nothing to help the ache in his chest, his jaw, and the sense of foreboding that has accompanied him since he left the purebloods' meeting place. Nevertheless, he already knows what the outcome of his mental struggle will be. He whirls around without a second thought and grabs her hands roughly, shocking her into paying attention. "Please, Hermione. Please don't do this to me. I can't live knowing you died all because you were too much of a stubborn arse to listen to em. Please, Hermione, trust me just this once. Stop being such a Gryffindor and listen to your head. You know I wouldn't make this up. You know I've changed. So please, please, do what I ask and move the wedding. Marry your Weasley in a few weeks, or elope, or have some kind of little wedding, but please don't risk your life for this."_

_She yanks her hands away as though burned, and slaps him roughly across the face. "Leave. I don't want to see you again. You can just fuck off and die. I want nothing to do with you and your plans."_

_He staggers backwards and is once again avoiding her eyes. He is panting, and all he wants to do is prostrate himself at her feet and keep begging. But he knows. He knows that she will never believe him, no matter what he does. So he turns and leaves, determination and sorrow lighting flames in his eyes._

You decided to interfere on your own, which is how you landed yourself in this predicament. You had spent days warding the site of the wedding, and on the actual day of the wedding, when the pureblood forces arrived, you fought them. Eventually, the resuscitated Order joined the fight, but by then, you were severely injured and had been captured by your former allies. You were tortured for eight days, then bound to the chair and left to die of starvation and blood loss. That was three days ago.

Now, you are just waiting to die, waiting for the pain to stop, waiting for the memories to just leave you alone. But until then, you can only remember her, and hope she survived the attack, or your attempt at heroics would have been wasted.

Only hours later, you no longer feel the pain, just like the books said. You are glad that you will die soon, life was never kind to you and you will be glad to take your leave of it. You feel yourself fading, a most curious sensation. You wonder whether she would cry if she heard that you had died. Would she care? Would she remember, as you now remember, everything that happened? Would she regret anything? You think of her face, crumpling in tears as she hears of your last sacrifice, the last proof of your miserable declaration.

One by one, the memories flit through your mind, and then are erased. But it seems that the books don't describe how kind the mind is to you once it is at its end; the memories are different, distorted. Memories of her smiling and laughing, eyes radiant as she looks at you, the world shining on her lips. Memories of her holding your hand, and stroking your hair. Memories of a golden ring gleaming on her finger. Memories of her swollen stomach and her face alight with pride. Memories of little children running through the grounds of the Manor. Memories of happiness. Memories of light.

The only thing that is left, that is real, is the last time you saw her:

_She looks stunning in a glowing white wedding dress, her hair done as it had been for the Yule Ball. She is grinning widely, gliding down the makeshift altar like an angel, looking truly happy for the first time in years, ready to tie herself to the man she loves._

**Please leave a review and thank you for reading!**


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